Rowan Alawi
Honours
Other honours
In their own words
“We reached out to more than 2,000 contractors and fewer than 200 agreed to have meetings with us, and none signed when we first started working. Today we work with 25 enterprise clients across four countries.”
The story
Rowan Alawi set out to study architecture but chose engineering, earning a BEng in mechatronics, robotics and automation engineering at Birzeit University. A third-generation builder, she began as a site engineer at Al Nabali and Al Fares for construction. She then joined Freightos as employee number 15, building its quality assurance team and leading data and SaaS projects as it digitised global freight. She left to bring that change to construction. As CEO of AmalWork, she built partnerships backed by USAID, EXPO and EWC, and later earned an MBA from Stanford University. In January 2022 she co-founded Trase, the AI platform where construction projects are approved, inspected and paid for. Today Trase serves 25 enterprise clients on 113 live projects across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Morocco. Rowan is an IVLP alumna, a leading woman in tech, ConTech Leader of the Year 2026, TiE Women MENA 2026 winner and a CICA ConTech Laureate.
By the numbers
Career
Their company
PalestineProptechTrase
Trase is the AI platform where construction projects are approved, inspected and paid for.
